歌林財務危機個案

Abstract

Kolin, established in 1963, is one of the most famous local home appliance companies in Taiwan as it accompanied Taiwanese people so many decades. In light of the gradual saturate home appliance market in Taiwan, in 2003 Kolin decided to expand their oversea operation and chose the fast growing LCD TV as their core product.

In 2004, Kolin formed partnership with the American company Syntax to help them further explore the biggest single market- North America. Kolin was responsible for LCD TV manufacturing, while Syntax in charge of channel management, marketing, and sales. From 2004 to 2007, everything seemed to go smoothly as Kolin’s revenue nearly tripled and Kolin became profitable in 2005. At this time many people thought Kolin is very promising.

However, Kolin’s financial crisis formally erupted as its distributor Syntax filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2008 while Kolin still had 5.94 billion NTD account receivables yet collected from Syntax, and later it led Kolin to rim of bankruptcy. This case study is intended to see where the problem is and provide some suggestions which can be used to prevent the occurrence of similar crisis in the after-case discussion.

There were several major reasons that led to the fall of Kolin: 1. two-thirds of its revenues were from Syntax. 2. It didn’t ask Syntax to provide letter of credit or other collateral while, nor did it buy the credit insurance. 3. its days on account receivables deteriorated from 128 days in 2004 to 178 days in 2007, and the A/R rose from 3billion NTD to 11billionNTD. 4. continuous negative cash-flow made Kolin unable to respond the crisis